cotiger wrote:Other things.. in the monthly payment calculations, you used the third year Stafford interest rate on all of them (including for GradPLUS) instead of the individual years for Stafford/GP.

Also, when calculating the accumulated interest, accounting for the fact that loans are disbursed semesterly would increase accuracy.

I would just upload these edits myself, but I don't know how to save over the posted file or if that's even possible.

It's not possible because it's simply an uploaded Excel file - this is meant to be downloaded prior to editing.

I will fix point one tomorrow once I'm back on windows at work. I'll look into point two, but I think when I did in the past I decided the increased accuracy wasn't worth the increased complexity. It doesn't change the final COA all that much. But I'll take a look at it again.

lawschool22 wrote:Okay cotiger, I think I have it fixed. Take a look and let me know if it's right! Thanks - It's nice to have someone else look this stuff over lol

No prob.

I think you must've re-uploaded the old version, because neither of those two things have changed lol

My google drive background uploader was removed due to something someone in tech support was doing to my computer today at work. I updated it locally but it hasn't uploaded yet. I will have to fix it tomorrow when at work lol. Sorry!

lawschool22 wrote:Okay cotiger, I think I have it fixed. Take a look and let me know if it's right! Thanks - It's nice to have someone else look this stuff over lol

No prob.

I think you must've re-uploaded the old version, because neither of those two things have changed lol

My google drive background uploader was removed due to something someone in tech support was doing to my computer today at work. I updated it locally but it hasn't uploaded yet. I will have to fix it tomorrow when at work lol. Sorry!

Oh no worries. I make all the changes on my own file anyways. Just checking up for other peeps who might download it.

lawschool22 wrote:Okay cotiger, I think I have it fixed. Take a look and let me know if it's right! Thanks - It's nice to have someone else look this stuff over lol

No prob.

I think you must've re-uploaded the old version, because neither of those two things have changed lol

My google drive background uploader was removed due to something someone in tech support was doing to my computer today at work. I updated it locally but it hasn't uploaded yet. I will have to fix it tomorrow when at work lol. Sorry!

Oh no worries. I make all the changes on my own file anyways. Just checking up for other peeps who might download it.

cotiger wrote:There's an error/typo in the 1L and 2L GradPLUS accumulated interest cells. Need to always divide yearly loans taken out by two and then multiply the interest by the (changing) number of years.

Thanks! Glad you're finding it useful. This is one of the most important numbers that people need to know when evaluating decisions. Hopefully this makes it easier for people to see how much their "true" cost is.

Can someone give me a source that explains how unsubsidized Stafford loans interest capitalizes? You guys seem to be operating on the assumption that the interest accumulates but doesn't capitalize until repayment, yet I can't find a source for this.

aboutmydaylight wrote:Can someone give me a source that explains how unsubsidized Stafford loans interest capitalizes? You guys seem to be operating on the assumption that the interest accumulates but doesn't capitalize until repayment, yet I can't find a source for this.

For some reason I feel like we had this conversation somewhere but I don't remember where. I'll try to find it. If the spreadsheet is wrong I'll fix it.

Eta: Well I found the discussion but no source. Also it's proving difficult to get a clear answer on this from the searching in done.

Am I wrong in thinking that the quarter system is much more favorable to student loans than the semester system? Not only does semester start about a month before quarter system, but you also have to take out more money up front because its divided by 2 instead of 3. That seems to be a pretty significant difference.

For example, assuming you start at the beginning of August and take out the max $20,500 in Stafford loans, that means $10,500 per semester. Second semester starts at the beginning of January. By the beginning of August next year you've had 12 months of interest on the first part of the loan, and 7 months of interest on the second part of your loan. With an interest rate of 5.41%, that's 5.41% * 10500 + (5.41%*(7/12)) * 10500 = 568.05 + 331.36 = $899.41 in interest.

For quarter system, its $6833 per quarter, in September, January, and April. That means by August of next year (assuming your big law job starts at the same time regardless of semester/quarter), you'll have 11 months on the first part of your loan, 7 months on the second part, and 4 months on the last part of your loan. Again, that's (11/12)*5.41%*6833 + (7/12)*5.41%*6833 + (4/12)*5.41%*6833 = $677.719 in interest. That's significantly lower.

aboutmydaylight wrote:Am I wrong in thinking that the quarter system is much more favorable to student loans than the semester system? Not only does semester start about a month before quarter system, but you also have to take out more money up front because its divided by 2 instead of 3. That seems to be a pretty significant difference.

For example, assuming you start at the beginning of August and take out the max $20,500 in Stafford loans, that means $10,500 per semester. Second semester starts at the beginning of January. By the beginning of August next year you've had 12 months of interest on the first part of the loan, and 7 months of interest on the second part of your loan. With an interest rate of 5.41%, that's 5.41% * 10500 + (5.41%*(7/12)) * 10500 = 568.05 + 331.36 = $899.41 in interest.

For quarter system, its $6833 per quarter, in September, January, and April. That means by August of next year (assuming your big law job starts at the same time regardless of semester/quarter), you'll have 11 months on the first part of your loan, 7 months on the second part, and 4 months on the last part of your loan. Again, that's (11/12)*5.41%*6833 + (7/12)*5.41%*6833 + (4/12)*5.41%*6833 = $677.719 in interest. That's significantly lower.

Or am I making a wrong assumption about how loans are distributed?

I didn't check your math but I don't really consider $220ish differential to be significant when we're talking about $100-$200k loans